Transitioning from traditional business models to sustainable business models in corporate organisations

Abstract

The current global challenge is sustainability in the context of the economy, society, and the environment. Traditional and legacy ways of conducting business are not conducive to delivering value in response to the economic, social, and environmental challenges. Research has explored ways to contribute to resolution on these challenges by means of identifying ways to guide the transition of organisations to sustainable ways of creating, delivering, and capturing value however due to the extensiveness of the problem, there has not been sufficient frameworks and guidelines toward this progression of business model innovation for sustainability. The purpose this research study was to contribute to the extant literature on sustainable business model innovation by exploring and understanding how organisations innovate their business model to develop a sustainable business model and through this process generate insights in respect to sustainable business model innovation. This qualitative study was conducted through 16 semi-structured interviews across 4 industries in South Africa that are in the process of transitioning to a sustainable business model. The research outcomes delivered insights and understanding of SBMI and refined certain areas of the extant literature on SBMI. This was then transformed into a conceptual framework that may assist organisations in their transitions from a traditional business model to a sustainable business model.